Thursday, 16 February 2017

I love Conan the Barbarian – both the
original Robert E. Howard stories and the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. A friend
showed me the film in late 2006 or early 2007 (the same friend who showed me The Beyond, actually) and it became an instant
favourite. Shortly
afterwards came the purchase of The Complete
Conan Chronicles, a compilation of the original Robert E. Howard short
stories from the 1930s. Rarely have I come across an author that I have enjoyed
as much – I like to think he's influenced my own writing, though it may not be
so evident on this blog. Howard died tragically young as the result of a
self-inflicted gunshot, but his work left behind a legacy that has grown to
encompass a multimedia empire – not to mention the many derivatives the
character spawned in his wake.

So how has
this fandom led me down a foolish path? Well, I have been hoping for a Conan
POP since I started collecting back in 2013. And the basic figure was announced
late last year as being available through Popcultcha – but the two you see in
the pictures here were originally advertised as being exclusive to
Entertainment Earth. Which in principle I didn’t mind, except that it meant
they would cost me a whole bunch in postage…but I put in the order anyway, because I was worried that they wouldn't be released in Australia.

But to cut a
long story short, these POPs did end
up coming out in Australia (before they arrived from the US) and it was already
too late to cancel the order. So these guys ended up costing me around double
what they would have in Sydney, with the only distinction being the little “PX
Previews Exclusive” sticker on each box. I'd understand if this was a convention exclusive or chase, but does anyone really care about this particular type of sticker?

Overall,
these figures are great. The sculpts are good, capturing the little details of
the character nicely. But don’t be like
me – learn from my experience and just buy them from your local retailer.